Feb. 22, 2014

Department of Environmental Conservation researcher Pete Kinney holds a shortnose sturgeon June 10, 2013 as biologist Amanda Higgs scans it for an identification chip. They were working on the Hudson River in the Croton area. / Joe Larese/The Journal News

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Dozens of endangered sturgeon have been swimming around where the new Tappan Zee Bridge is being built, according to monitoring reports submitted to state and federal agencies.

The reports list individual fish outfitted with sonic tags that were detected by receivers in the Hudson River last year. The Atlantic and shortnose sturgeons were tracked in the construction zone near Tarrytown and farther away in the river, from the George Washington Bridge to Stony Point.

Both the National Marine Fisheries Service and the state Department of Environmental Conservation require the state Thruway Authority to document sturgeons’ travels in the river while the state is building the new bridge.

Some receivers were in place as early as last June. But identifying information about the signals recorded from some fish wasn’t available until this week, when agreements were finalized with the outside researchers who had implanted the transmitters.

“The agreements to use data from independent researchers will help us track and monitor more endangered sturgeon,” said Brian Conybeare, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s special adviser on the project. “This is just one of the many unprecedented environmental performance commitments on the project that will help protect wildlife in and around the Hudson River during construction and provide valuable information to state and federal oversight agencies to use on future infrastructure projects.”

The environmental group Riverkeeper, which has been monitoring how the project’s requirements are enforced, declined to comment on the agreement.

The reports show 23 shortnose sturgeon spent time near the construction zone during the summer and part of the fall. At least 13 juvenile Atlantic sturgeon swam about the larger study area from June through October.

The number of adult Atlantic sturgeon recorded isn’t publicly available. State officials said that’s because the agreement with SUNY Stony Brook prohibits the information from being released to the public due to ongoing university research.

Some of the sturgeon were tagged by the DEC. Other data comes from the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.

The Thruway Authority and its consultants plan to tag another 60 shortnose and 60 Atlantic sturgeon this year.

Conybeare said the sturgeon monitoring reports will be posted on the project’s website, www.newnybridge.com.